Age of Crimson
by Taffia
Summary: The Empire upon Nosgoth flourished. The vampires, reviled by many, had still managed to achieve a certain divinity. Kain and his lieutenants allowed clan spats to occur for the sheer entertainment, but the main attraction was a more 'holy' crusade....


**Age of Crimson**

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_Author's Note__: Some of the concepts applied in this work of fiction may not run exactly as many would expect. A sort of continuity has been aimed for, moving as the Legacy of Kain series does, but some of the unexplained fragments of Raziel's particular role in the story have been theorized in a way that might not make sense to all readers. If Duma could use constriction; Melchiah could phase; and Rahab could withstand water; what strength was it that Raziel possessed before he was damned? What 'divine' being would he have become had he survived? By analyzing the clan symbols and comparing them to the vampire lords encountered in **Soul Reaver**, I've come up with a few possible answers. I don't claim to actually know what's true or not, but what I, myself, believe to be the case has been applied in the following story._

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**Chapter One**

He could hear the cries coming to him upon the wind. From his seat on the dais, his throne of intricately carved granite, he listened to the humans die as his newest pack of fledglings tasted their first blood. A satisfied smirk coursed its smooth way across his lips as a bit of pride rose within him. He'd done well in choosing the additions to his still-young clan. Kain, beyond doubt, would be pleased with him.

Raziel rose slowly as the noise began to die down, the two adults that stood guard by him bowing slightly and backing away a few polite steps. He wanted to greet his children properly, welcoming them to the safety and grandeur of his massive torch-lit halls. Banners of red and silver hung from the vaulted ceiling, proclaiming his clan symbol to all who might see them. Guards stood sentry at the top of every stair that led from the main floor to where the master stood, armed with vicious spears that could easily impale even the strongest vampire. He was armed with nothing, bare chested save for his armored shoulders and the leather straps that held it all in place, a cape of his clan covering his right arm. His trousers were of dark leather and shining metal, little protection against anything, certainly, but comfortable enough.

The fledglings filed into the hall, stepping uncertainly beneath the great portcullis and past the guards. It was as if they weren't certain they were allowed to approach their master, but at the same instant it was to that end that they were compelled. At the top of the final stair, the five of them dropped to one knee at Raziel's cloven feet, pressing their right fists against their hearts and lowering their blood-smeared faces to the floor. Each had once been a member of the human watch, guarding the Citadel to the northwest with tremendous fervor against the vampires that frightened them. Now, however, they were a part of the very faction they had hated most...and all were ignorant of the past.

Like a father, Raziel held his still-human hands out to them, letting them grasp his palms and forearms and come to their feet before him. He smiled warmly at them, not exposing any fang.

"You have done well this first eve," he said, his tenor voice smooth as silk. "Now, go and take what rest is earned to you. Your full strength will come to you all in time."

The five stepped back and bowed deeply. The one at the forefront of them, a once captain-general of the Citadel's forces and obvious leader of this pack, lifted his eyes back to the master and said boldly, "Hail, Lord Raziel, first of Kain's lieutenants. We serve only you." He bowed again quickly.

Raziel nodded in return and dismissed them all with a wave of his hand. They left more quickly than they had approached, shuffling off through a small door to their left and into the clan territory proper. The vampire lord smiled. Kain would certainly be anxious to hear of Clan Razielim's continued success.

He stepped down from his dais and proceeded through a door opposite the one his fledglings had vanished through, striding along a short corridor and down a flight of steps and entering his own chambers. His thirst was great, especially after seeing the blood spattered across his youngest children, but he still had a few matters to attend to before seeing to his own well-being. Crossing over to an ornate, ebony writing desk, he opened a ledger of bound parchment, marked five hashes on a page already teeming with the like, and sat heavily in his chair.

Within days, his newest recruits would be less human, gaining the deathly pale skin and clawed feet that Raziel possessed. As he evolved, so would they, and he was already far ahead of his brothers who still sported boots of human design. His ears were elegant and pointed and his complexion the cold perfection of marble, just as Kain had been in centuries past before further signs of his divinity had made themselves known. Raziel just hoped that, because he was the eldest and most favored out of all the lieutenants, that Clan Razielim would be as well. Unfortunately, the Dumahim still had them outnumbered.

Raziel scowled at the hashes emblazoned before him. The gluttony of his brother, Duma, had spawned an entire city of vampires, all taking refuge in the northern mountain wastes to better escape the enraged human population. There was certainly strength in numbers, as the old cliche went, but Raziel was certain that more was necessary for the ultimate success. And he was determined to prove it.

He lifted his head to take in a map of Nosgoth, torn and ancient, that hung on the stone wall. He'd stolen it from the Sarafan apparently, though he honestly couldn't remember doing such. All he knew was that it was marked with their seal and displayed all of their fortresses as far as their territory extended. They were the ultimate enemy, Kain constantly expressed, and needed to be exterminated. Raziel had found a better use for them. At least a quarter of his clan came from their hated legions. They did not remember their pasts or their true identities, but they retained the rigorous lessons and foolhardy tactics the Priesthood had methodically pounded into their skulls. 

His eyes fell upon a fortress west of the ruined Pillars. It was a small outpost, remote and under-staffed, where he could usually find easy pickings every so often. However, he preferred not to bother with it. The warriors there were usually inexperienced boys with a handful of sorceresses that were little more than dabblers in magic to watch their backs. He needed something more promising.

The main stronghold was the best possible place, but he knew it to be too dangerous to venture there even with his entire clan at his back. Of course there was always risk when dealing with the cult-like organization, but anything was better than total extermination. A few more footmen just wasn't worth it.

At last, he'd found it. An old monastic fortress stood south-southeast of the Pillars and promised a worthy challenge on top of ample gain, and the longer he thought about it, the more thirsty he became. Rising, he went back into the main hall and motioned for two of the adult guards to follow him.

"We hunt Sarafan this night," he told them boldly without even looking behind to make sure they were there. "Keep alert. This task is not going to be an easy one."

"Our pikes are at the ready, Lord," one of the guards replied, his voice deep and coarse from years of shouting commands. He was captain of the domain's watch and one of Raziel's oldest and most trustworthy children.

"Ready your souls as well," Raziel said in warning, pausing just at the entrance to the domain that overlooked the Lake of Death, "for the warriors we shall deal with will stop at nothing to steal them from you." With that, he leaped with inhuman strength to a ledge just distant and turned onto the path that would lead him and his clanmates to the very heart of the Empire. From there, they could easily find their way to the fortress and the nourishment they craved.

For a human, it would not have been an easy trek, but the vampires possessed such strengths that let them bypass a myriad of obstacles. Nimbly, the small band scaled rock faces, finding easy handholds that they could grip in clutches of steel. They still had to be wary, however. Unlike his brother, Zephon, Raziel and his clan were not blessed with adamant hands and feet. They could not plunge their fingers into the very rock itself and climb anywhere. Clan Razielim's gift, though only truly bestowed upon the elders, was of a slightly better sort. Despite, the lieutenant hoped he and his tiny band would not be out late enough to have to use it.

They came to a lofty plateau that let them view the land for miles. The grand elegance of the Sanctuary of the Clans was behind them, glowing white in the subdued moonlight, hardly stained by the smoke that choked the air. What lay before them was a flat expanse of sickly earth, plants struggling for life in an unforgiving environment. But still, they somehow managed to thrive. Raziel began to run to the southeast, his guards following closely as he made his way parallel to a stretch of trackway. It was hardly ever used but led inevitably to their destination. Any humans they came upon along the way were free game to whoever desired to pursue, though it was not expected at such a late hour of the night.

Raziel ducked behind a large boulder as the fortress came into full view upon the horizon. Towering and black from the poisoned atmosphere, it held onto its forbidding aura despite how it began to crumble. The ramparts were no longer complete, and the iron grates in the windows were rusted over. However, the Sarafan Priesthood kept it well stocked with knights, priests and magic-users. It also served as a residence for a town population of common folk, a prime setting for a hungering vampire to want.

The main gate was a tall portal of reinforced wood, the iron beams thick and strong. And beyond that was a series of portcullises, all closed by this point, and impossible to get past without them being lifted. Raziel was hardly deterred.

"How do we get inside, Master?" one of the guards whispered, his yellow eyes darting from one slot window to another. "I smell no fewer than ten guards about the entrance alone."

"As my brother, Melchiah, would tell you," Raziel replied absently, looking off to a spot just beyond the easternmost wall of the fortress, "we won't use the door. Come."

At that, he darted off briskly, keeping as low to the ground as he could so as not to be noticed by the guards. His pale skin collected and reflected the moonlight in such a way that it very nearly looked like he radiated the light himself. His companions were no better off.

They quickly arrived at a precipice, a steep drop-off that plunged hundreds of feet to end in a raging river below. Raziel stopped easily enough, but his men skittered to a halt, clinging to each other in sudden panic as the unanticipated danger presented itself. Undaunted, the lieutenant motioned them to follow him, and he swung himself easily over the side of the cliff. This was a trip he'd made dozens if not hundreds of times in the past. It was perfectly manageable--even to fledglings, though he was glad not to be dealing with them. Building resolve, the adults quickly followed albeit uncertainly. They could see a ledge not far below that Raziel had dropped onto, but the water even further down still frightened them beyond imagining.

"Hurry!" Raziel hissed harshly up at them. "There is a dry sewer not far from here, but we have not the time for delays!"

He walked off along the ledge, its wide breadth easily traversed southward right beneath the shadow of the fortress, and one walking there had no fear of being spotted by the watch night or day. Two clattering thuds followed mere seconds after Raziel's first steps as his guards landed and shuffled hurriedly up against the cold rock. They followed him as fast as they could, their wide eyes entirely focused on the rushing river, and their mouths uttering oaths in hopes that the ground would not give way. Raziel looked back upon them in ambivalence. One day, this trip would bother them no more than it bothered him. One day.

The opening to the sewer was a gaping circular hole in the otherwise smooth cliff face. A grate had once been covering the end, but years of water streaming through and rain pounding down had deteriorated the metal bars to the point where they had easily come off. They were missing even before Raziel had discovered this particular route, and he suspected that he was not the first to have used it as a means of entry. Of course, given the history of the humans and their wars even with each other, there was no telling who it had been exactly. Little of that mattered.

With his two men behind him, shaken but regaining confidence, he ducked into the darkness of the cylindrical tunnel that easily accommodated even one of his above-average height. His keen eyes pierced the dimness and discerned the subtle turns and dips and rises, one hand never straying from the smooth stone to aid in guiding. After what could have been no less than several minutes, they rounded a bend and came upon a square shaft of light. Peering upwards, the three vampires took in still another grate. This one, unlike the one to the tunnel proper, was not nearly so old and worn. All the bars remained, dingy with time and dirt but barely touched by rust.

Motioning for the group to stop, Raziel squinted up through the grate, trying to see what was above.

"There are at least two humans nearby," his whispered, reaching out with his keen sense of smell, perceiving the bittersweet tang of living blood. "But we have nothing to fear immediately. This grate opens up into an alleyway that's been long neglected by the watch. But, we must move quickly. " With that, he reached up and pushed the grate free. It clanked only a little as it was jarred loose, having seen more use than what anyone would have expected of a sewer drain, but it was not a noise that would have truly alarmed anyone even had they heard it.

Raziel climbed through the small opening first, crouching in shadows just inside the entrance to the alleyway as his fellows followed. Two guards lightly conversed no more than twenty yards south down the otherwise abandoned street, laughing at jokes told in their boredom.

"Perfect," Raziel breathed. "Mathaus."

"Master?" The captain of the domain watch came up next to him, flicking desperately at blond strands of hair that refused to stay out of his eyes.

"You and Darias take care of those two. And bring the bodies. Those are Sarafan knights, and I want them embraced." He glanced down in the opposite direction, green eyes narrowing behind long locks of black. "I smell something down that way. Don't stray far from this alley. Get your prey and return here immediately. Understood?"

The two vampires nodded, faces solid as they prepared themselves for an encounter with the Sarafan. Raziel nodded back a single time before slinking off to the north, keeping to the shadows and moving with learned stealth. His children took care of the guards so well, only the sharper smell of human blood was any indication that their task was complete and successful.

Raziel himself ducked into a derelict house, following the scent he had already picked up some time before. Descending a rotting wooden stair, he happened upon a sight he most certainly hadn't expected to see.

A young girl sat in the middle of a small room. Candles burned about her in roughly concentric circles as she prayed silently to herself in the closeness of the place. Her hair was matted and so dirty it was impossible to judge the true color. Her dress was filthy and torn, but her skin maintained a whiteness that meant one of two things: either she was already vampire (as the lieutenant could tell very well that she wasn't) or she had been struck by the plague that was currently ravaging the human populations in several areas. The lattermost was definitely the case.

The creaking of a misstep alerted her to his presence, and she looked up with large, round eyes of a deep brown that held all the innocence in the world. She was hardly more than a child so far as Raziel could surmise, and once she'd stared at him for a few seconds only, a grin that somehow worried the vampire sprang to her pallid lips.

"I knew you'd come," she said brightly, getting to her feet and leaping nimbly across the rows of candles. "You're one of them. I know it. I've been praying for you to come."

Raziel could do nothing but blink. He'd heard of and encountered factions of humans that worshipped the vampires as gods, but they'd generally stuck to sacrifice and bloodlust. Praying implied hopes of good things being returned, and according to general human standards, vampires, even in their divinity, were simply unable to cater to such requests. Or at least chose not to. Showering the rabble with gifts was no way to survive.

"You _are_ a Dark One, aren't you?" she pressed, one deeply colored eyebrow lifting in skepticism. "A vampire?"

"And what would a child know of such things?" Raziel muttered, about ready to simply drain the girl of her blood and leave. However, something deep in his gut pulled him in the direction of satisfying his curiosity first.

Her eyes narrowed, her face suddenly serious, seemingly adding untold years to her features. Raziel was suddenly totally at a loss for placing her age.

"More than you would apparently expect," she replied simply, crossing bony arms over her scrawny torso. "Before the plague hit, I was being trained in the Priesthood. The accursed cowards cast me out once I was stricken, and ever since I've received naught but scorn from them. So much for their boundless benevolence."

"And this has what to do with vampires? Seeking vengeance, are you?"

The girl shook her head. "Hardly. It's more like I'm seeking answers, and I can't turn to the one place I was brought up to think knew everything. Let's just say I'm keeping my options open."

"So you'd risk death in order to satisfy your own curiosity?" Raziel smirked. "How quaint. And you being Sarafan of all things. What is it that you're expecting out of all this--siding with vampires even if just long enough to ask questions?"

"I've been cheating death every day for weeks, now," she returned. "Ever since the plague took me, it's been one struggle after another. Now, it's just choosing the way I'd prefer to die, and I'd rather not let it be due to the disease. Vampires have powers men can only dream of. I want to live that dream before my time comes."

Raziel was completely taken aback. Blinking in utter disbelief and horror, he had to catch himself quickly before he fell off the stairs entirely. The wood groaned mournfully beneath his heavy weight. A Sarafan acolyte...desiring the divine gift! Either she had a very open mind, or the plague had completely rendered her mad. A combination of both was also a plausible assumption. The plague was, indeed, known to cause a total and complete lack of judgment, turning even the brightest being into a bumbling idiot before it finally destroyed them mind, body and soul. This girl's rigorous training in the Priesthood had strengthened her resolve, but it was only a matter of time before she, too, would succumb to her fate.

He considered his options carefully. Feeding off a diseased human was not exactly what he had in mind regardless of his hunger. Leaving her alive after she'd seen him and had ample time to mark his appearance was dangerous. She would surely find someone who would believe her and they likewise. Before long, Raziel would be out of a good spot of hunting grounds.

"You wish to be blessed?" he breathed out at last. "You wish to be as we are?"

"I wish for your powers," she replied strongly. "I want to be healed. I want to prove to the Sarafan that I can still be one of them!"

Raziel gave her a wry smile and placed a hand beneath her chin, tilting her gaunt face upward. From her position on the floor, she barely came above his waist. "What you want can never be granted. The Sarafan will never accept you. Not in this life...or the next. If your desire is to be with them, I can assure you nothing but death, and it will be granted by my own hand."

"They have forgotten what it is to be holy--to be pure!" she spat, her eyes blazing with fever and hatred and madness. "A thousand years ago and more they rose against the vampires, purging them all save for the renegade Kain. Army met army. Each man saw his enemy in the eye. Now...now there are nothing more but skirmishes. Humans hide behind stone walls such as this, every now and again emerging to slay a handful of Kain's legions. Our very earth dies, and all we do is squabble. The Priesthood is here to stop the decay, and they forget that the vampires aren't the real problem." She closed her eyes and shook her head sadly. "There is no more honor in it. The war is merely for survival. It's no longer a crusade."

Raziel felt a stirring deep within his soul, a tugging, as if a memory were trying to surface but ultimately failing. Something about the girl's words, despite her raving and her illness, rang true. Something about _her_ showed much promise, and not for the Sarafan. It was as if she despised them and vampires both but had settled on siding with what she saw as the lesser of the two evils. Raziel had no complaints. Even women were more than welcome in Clan Razielim, proving useful in as many ways as men oft-times.

"It will be painless," he assured her at last. "And when you awaken, there will be much to learn. I can make you no promises other than there is much honor to be had in serving the Empire."

Her dry lips were pulled into a smile. 

"Yes," she said quietly, as if her mind were already finding its solace in the idea alone, "I will bring honor back to the Priesthood. Renewed honor and new purpose. We must no longer defend Nosgoth against Kain and his own. We must defend Nosgoth against _itself_."

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Kain regarded the new additions to Clan Razielim with interest, his newly clawed hands resting on the arms of his throne nestled at the base of the Balance Pillar. They'd just come out of their first state of change, no longer looking fully human, and all of them appearing most satisfactory. He smiled. His army was growing, and unlike Duma or Melchiah, Kain knew that Raziel was very careful in who he chose to embrace and who to simply use as fodder. He rose to inspect the ten fledglings more carefully, claws clasped over the platinum hair that fell to his waist.

"What are their names?" he asked his first lieutenant curiously, circling a slender young female who could almost be labeled as skinny. Her long, straight hair was almost black, maintaining a sort of reddish sheen to it, and her eyes had obviously been brown in her human life. Now, they were showing signs of turning a pure crimson. She wore a simple dress of Razielim red trimmed in silver at the collar and hem, a belt of heavy silver disks encircled her hips.

"That one is Dhalia," Raziel replied, standing at attention at his place in the council circle. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Duma's slightly too-interested eyes regarding his fledglings. "The one next to her is Percal. The rest have neither remembered nor thought up names for themselves, yet."

"Indeed."

Kain turned his yellow eyes to the one called Percal, a male who insisted on wearing a Sarafan bastard sword at his hip. Some of his armor was still identifiable as belonging to that particular faction, but the colors had been altered to match those of the clan. His hair was curly and brown, cropped close to his head, and his eyes were an unnatural blue.

"You stole all of these from the Sarafan Priesthood, Raziel? I must say, I'm impressed." Kain walked over to his lieutenant. "See to it that one remembers at least a little of who they were...but not too much. Loyalty is important, but so is information about the enemy. The Sarafan have been a bed of nettles to us for far too many centuries. We must see them gone. Obliterated."

"Yes, Master. I'll set about finding an appropriate candidate as soon as possible." He bowed reverently. Once he was dismissed, he turned on his heel and exited the chamber, his fledglings following obediently behind in two neat rows. They returned immediately to the clan domain west of the Lake.

"Dhalia, I want to see you in my chambers. The rest of you make your way to the commons. There are adults there waiting to train you for your service to the Empire." And without even halting in his steps, he went straight for the door near his throne, entering and making his way to his desk. Whether Dhalia was actually following or not, he didn't bother to check.

He sat in his chair and began to sift through sheaves of parchment, hunting for the one where he'd written the plague-stricken girl's story down as she'd dictated it to him. He'd brought her here alive, killing her cleanly only after she'd told him everything she could and delving about for the same soul she'd had before. He'd hoped Kain would want someone that would be the perfect spy, and Dhalia had shown herself to be the ideal choice from the first moment. It was only a matter of keeping her loyal once she was reminded of her nearly fanatical quest to right the wrongs of the Sarafan. That was also not mentioning the fact that she'd wanted to remain _human_ yet still gain the powers of the vampires--a thing simply impossible to accomplish.

Finding what he was looking for at last, he quickly skimmed over the surprisingly detailed tale. It had been as if Dhalia had been expecting the vampires to be more likely to help her and her cause had she told them absolutely everything she could think of, relevant or otherwise. That was fine with Raziel. It gave him more to work with, more to pick and choose from so that he could give her exactly what memories she needed. To his recollection, no vampire had ever been allowed to learn nearly so much about what they had been as a human. The mortal existence was insignificant in comparison and, therefore, gladly forgotten. This time, it was not to be completely cast aside.

There was movement to his right, and he glanced up. Dhalia had dropped to her knees at the arm of his chair, her eyes downcast and her posture radiating complete subservience.

"You summoned me, Lord Raziel," she stated humbly when she felt his gaze upon her.

Raziel returned his eyes to the parchment in his hand, flipping through sheets to various parts of her past, the lessons she had learned, the names of people she'd known: friends, family, enemies, teachers. He skimmed over briefly her telling of minor battles she'd fought in before the plague had struck and her subsequent banishment once she'd contracted the deadly disease.

"How long have you been in my service, Dhalia?" he asked her tonelessly, almost as if he were making forced polite conversation.

"Just a little over a month, my lord. A month and four days and this evening."

"Do you remember anything before you awoke in these halls?"

She pressed her dark red lips together as she thought, her brow furrowing when she realized that it was much more difficult than it should have been.

"No, my lord. I remember my name. I remember asking you to save me from something, and you did. Now, I'm here and forever in your debt. So far as I'm concerned, that's all I truly need to know."

Raziel sighed. He'd hoped granting her back her own soul instead of some random one would have increased the chances of her remembering much more if not practically everything. Now, however, all he could expect to ascertain was that maybe a few facts would jog her memory or that perhaps she'd pick things up again all the more quickly.

"I want you to close your eyes for a moment," he began, "and do as I tell you. The master thinks it imperative that you learn who you had been as a human for purposes of protecting Nosgoth and the Empire. I want you to try to imagine life as it may have been. Do you think you can manage that?"

Dhalia nodded, closed her eyes and swallowed deeply. "I can try, though I honestly don't see what good can come out of it. Humans are all weak so far as I've seen. Weak with inflated egos...as if everything they do is the right thing and nothing else can be."

Raziel smiled. Her change in race had not created that ideal. He'd seen it just earlier, scribbled down on the parchment in front of him just as she'd said it herself a month before.

"I want you to picture yourself however you deem fit--instinctively perhaps. Place yourself wherever. What do you see?"

The young woman's eyebrows furrowed together again, her lips pursing slightly as she tried to get her mind's eye to focus on something. She had the same soul, the same body, the same mind. It was all a matter of time.

"I'm outside a...castle of sorts. It's so high, the turrets look like they should be snagging the clouds in the sky. Windows...tall windows full of colored glass arranged to make pictures...angels...no. No, not angels. Knights. Knights with wings and helmets lit by the sun itself."

"What are you wearing?"

"Red. Something red...overtop armor of silver and gold. My head feels tight, like I'm wearing a skullcap." She opened her eyes wide and stared at Raziel, gripping his forearm with her hands so tightly he had to bite back a wince. Brusquely, he pulled her hands away and glowered at her slightly. She didn't apologize. "I was one of _them_, wasn't I?" she exclaimed. "I was of the Sarafan!"

She quickly rose and took a step away from him.

"But they abhor vampires and the evil they represent. Why did I want you to save me, then? What terrible fate was I suffering that made me want to choose what humans see as worse than death?" She began to pace, still trying to remember more. She did not seem angered by the realization, not as Raziel had expected she possibly might. Rather, a befuddled yet determined look dominated her features.

"They had cast you out, Dhalia," Raziel told her evenly, almost looking at her over his shoulder but rather focusing on a point on the floor just off to his right. "You came down with the plague, and they feared to catch it themselves. They forced you into the streets to be a beggar until you finally died. You asked me to save you that you might have the opportunity to return honor to the Priesthood. Honor that you claimed they lost a long time ago. However, even with all my years, I remember no such time."

Dhalia came slowly to a stop, her mouth beginning to fall open wider and wider as she made sense of things somewhat.

"Yes," she breathed, "yes, I'd been disgraced. The fools no longer know what piety is, what honor is, what duty truly means! Yes! I had determined to prove to the order that one should not try to purposely find fault in something that is divine out of jealousy. The Priesthood craves the powers we vampires possess...that's why they've waged this perpetual war. I had vowed to prove to them that the true evil was their actions themselves and not their chosen enemy!" She clenched a fist before her, her face proclaiming her inner victory.

Raziel smiled without bearing fang. Dhalia had easily enough remembered, at the very least, her name and purpose. Was any more truly necessary? Her animosity towards her own former benefactors had been rekindled and fanned into greater fury, which would have been enough for any decent spy. A good excuse to double-cross someone was one of the best things to have. However, Raziel couldn't help thinking that Dhalia could be put to an even better use in eradicating the vexatious Sarafan...from the inside out. Surely she still had _some_ friends left within their numbers. He thought she'd mentioned at least one....

"Do you recall anything about a Mordec Gatham?" he inquired, glancing down at her testimony again. Apparently the two of them had been as brother and sister growing up in the Priesthood, him managing to snare a position amongst the priests themselves.

She regarded him oddly, her fist now looking like it was supporting her chin though her elbow rested on nothing but her opposite forearm. "Mordec? Mordec...." She puzzled the name over, saying it aloud time and again as if the action were of any assistance.

"Trim boy? Steely expression? Sharp wit?" She pelted Raziel with the questions as if she expected him to know all the answers. "I called him Mord, I think. Well, if I knew him at all in any sort of familiar way, that's what I would call him."

"Well, you told me when you wanted me to save you that he shared many of the same views you have," Raziel said slyly. "I'm thinking that, if worse comes to worse, we might be able to go to him for aid. Having one of your own hidden behind enemy lines is typically a substantial benefit."

"Indeed," Dhalia replied. "But I honestly couldn't tell you if he'd be of any help or not. If the Sarafan rejected me once the plague set in, I more than likely never caught sight of him again. Besides..." she paused momentarily, her eyes blinking as a thought struck her, "he's stationed in the main Stronghold. I was sent to the fortress at Valschten...a couple years ago...I think. Without a doubt, he hasn't even heard from me in a while."

"I'm certain we could work around that if we had to," Raziel said, waving the concern away with his hand. He took one last look at the paper in front of him before rising and turning to face her fully. "And I think that's plenty enough for one evening. The remaining memories, I'm sure, will return to you in time. They always do. For now, though, you must be hungry. If you join the others in the commons, I've no doubt they've a few humans there to feast upon. We can't have you missing out on training, either. Every member of this army must pull his or her weight however best they can. Maybe you'll soon remember your magical training. You may go."

Nodding, she knelt at his feet and pressed her forehead against the back of his gloved hand. Then, she quickly got back on her feet and rushed out, up the stairs and through the door without a single glance back. Raziel watched until her feet were gone from view, then, before he even heard her footsteps fade into nothing, he tossed the parchment containing her story into a brazier, pressing it all down with his hand to make sure it was totally consumed. The flames licked around his skin but didn't even touch him. Such was the gift of Clan Razielim.

He had no qualms about destroying the papers. His memory was strong, and he'd read over it all so many times while his newest fledglings were in a pupal state that he would forever remember every detail. Soon enough, Dhalia would as well.

Drawing his hand back from the fire, he flexed his fingers a bit and walked up the stairs and out of his chamber entirely. He crossed to his throne, nodding to the guards as he approached, and sat, knowing that he should be at the ready should any need him. From the youngest fledgling to the eldest adult, all were important to him and his cause. He would someday prove that, though Clan Dumahim was the largest, Clan Razielim was truly the greatest.


End file.
